Busting Electric Car Myths In Costa Rica & Globally

In Amsterdam earlier this year for EVBox’s first annual rEVolution conference, one of the presenters was TED Talker, Latin American EV super advocate, and CleanTechnica reader Monica Araya.

She gave a wonderful presentation on breaking down electric vehicle myths in Costa Rica, more broadly across Latin America, and even more broadly across the world. The presentation is definitely worth a watch, so have at it!

A few major points worth remembering:

There are far more charging points than gas stations, and many of them are inside people’s garages.

Conventional hybrids are not the same as plug-in cars and generally lack the power and smooth driving experience of plug-in cars, not to mention the convenience of home charging.

There aren’t nearly as many fast charging stations needed as some people claim, primarily because EV drivers don’t use charging stations like gas/diesel car drivers do — ~80% of charging is done at work or home.

The best way to explain the benefits of electric cars is to just get them into electric cars and show them how they charge.

The key is people — people who convince people who convince people.

About Monica

Monica was born and raised in Costa Rica and started working on sustainability when she was 19, and has worked on it non-stop for more than 20 years. In 2014, Monica founded Nivela, a thought-leadership group devoted to clean development and Costa Rica Limpia, a citizen initiative (limpia means “clean”).